


evening amber & the next sunrise

by velificatio



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/F, References to Mutilation, References to Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 08:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5490275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velificatio/pseuds/velificatio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week before her wedding, Mal pursues a lover from her past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	evening amber & the next sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Ntobi Nuru is an original character of mine some of you might recall as being featured in Grizzly-Bear-Bane's fic Black Mamba. Her appearance is inspired by the the model Ajak Deng.

Mal’s first impression of Ntobi Nuru was that there was a decidedly solemn aspect to her nature that, combined with her beauty, was incredibly intriguing.  Every move she made was pronounced, like someone who knew how quickly fine details were lost to time and memory. 

“Dr. Miles,” She’d said as they shook hands. “I’m so pleased you took me up on this offer.”

“Well I’m admittedly surprised you were aware of my research in Kyoto,” Mal walked beside Ntobi through the airport terminal, their pace even. “Or that your boss was able to acquire such an item himself.”

The suspicion in her tone did not bother Ntobi. “Money and a like cause can propel a great deal of transactions at a faster pace than usual.” She tilted her head then. “Your perfume smells lovely. May I ask what it is?”

Mal hummed, playing into the diversion of topic without complaint. “ _ Joy _ by Jean Patou.”

“You must enjoy making your introductions memorable.” Ntobi mused. 

Her tone piqued Mal’s interest. “And you do not?”

“I’ve found personally that perfume is best used as an expression of farewells instead.” 

 

+

 

The PASIV had been developed in Japan for just this very purpose and an offer to utilize its potential treat victims of post traumatic stress was one Mal eagerly took up. 

“Do you know how to use this?” Ntobi casually retrieved a handgun from her bag. She arched her brow at Mal as if she already knew the answer.

Mal pursed her lips. “Should I?” She answered coyly, and clicked the saftey off then on again. There were five men in the van with them that Mal had no doubt were armed as well.

Ntobi had a deep laugh. Mal found it impossible not to smile at the very least in the face of it. 

“You’re sharp. It's a necessary safety precaution.” Ntobi said. “Chi- _ General Adebowale _ might have good intentions, but anyone with a military background is bound to have some enemies. That aside, we’ll also be in the largest urban slum in Africa.” 

Mal had yet to meet this General fellow Ntobi was employed to and had more than once now slipped into refering to by his first name Chioma. 

“We’re going to visit a family in Kibera. They fled from Uganda to Kenya after being abducted and mutilated by the  Lord’s Resistance Army. They’ve been recently relocated to a government constructed apartment. ”

Mal nodded, she’d received a file on this family from Ntobi via email and had lost sleep after reading its accounts. It was in an entirely different realm than her previous experience of treating patients with schizophrenia or other delusional disorders.  But Ntobi wasn’t finished. “You are not to touch the daughters or their mother inside or outside the dream you’ll be building for Mr. Uhuru. I will put them under myself. As you know their father was blinded, so you should put a lot of emphasis on tactile features in the dream.” She touched Mal’s hand, stressing her next words. “Build a peaceful space for them. A comforting one.”

Mal didn’t speak Swahili but Ntobi had explained to her the Uhuru family did understand English but prefered their native language. To make them as comfortable as possible she would translate for Mal.

Mr. Uhuru’s wife Nia answered the door, nodding at Ntobi with the barest hint of a smile which faded when she was introduced to Mal. It was understandable, Mal was very aware she was an outsider here in numerous ways. She focused on remembering what Ntobi had instructed her, imagining additions to the dreams interior based on what she observed in their modest home. 

It was of course sparse in decor but she saw two dolls on top of a shelf, covered in dust, large portions of their bodies appeared to have been torn away. Mr. Uhuru sat in a rocking chair, showing no signs of having noticed they’d entered. There was very visible scarring around his eyes and on the left portion of his face, due to the acid which had been employed to blind him. Sauda, the eldest daughter, was seated behind Subira, and was braiding her hair. Mal made sure not to linger on the stumps where Subira’s left and right forearms should be. Every so often Subria would speak to Sauda and she would turn the page on the book her younger sister was reading.

“I do not like this,” Nia hissed under her breath to Ntobi, who placed a hand on her shoulder. “She could do more harm than good.”

Ntobi took ahold of her hand. “You must trust me Nia. This is the best kind of psychiatric care Mwenye will be able to receive anytime soon.”

Mal had read in Mwenye’s file that he was selectively mute and prone to bouts of catatonia. According to Nia he spoke only a handful of times a year since they’d left Uganda, on the occasion of each of the family member’s birthdays and so far this year had yet to speak at all even as Sauda, the last birthday on their calendar, had passed.

She had thought to perhaps create a mosque, had sketched the details and layout on drawing pad. Nia had described Mwenye and their family as devout muslims.  But now Mal thought something perhaps more familial in intimacy than religiously might be a better. 

What she built instead was a marshy area bordering Lake Victoria. Thankfully she could recall the numerous photographs of the area Ntobi had attached to their file. Mwenye had grown up in nearby Kampala and met Nia there while playing near the lake as a child. Mal left most of the talking up to Ntobi, who walked beside Mwenye and Nia as they roamed with barefeet.

Mwenye’s brow had furrowed at his first step, his jaw clenching his foot grazed one of the many trinkets Mal had scattered throughout the terrain. Nia picked it up for him, one of the dolls from the shelf, but fully formed through Mal’s mind, its hair no longer cut off in patches, its legs in place. 

They’d lingered on that doll for a long time before continuing on. Mal wasn’t a major breakthrough on her first attempt but her heart skipped when Mwenye and Nia sat on the lake bed. His fingers curled in the wet grass, his jaw trembling and whatever it was Nia asked him, he nodded in response.

Ntobi caught Mal’s eye then, nodding her head. She could see Ntobi’s concern, her empathy for them so clearly, just as she’d felt her protectiveness for them on the van ride here. It struck Mal to her core. On the drive to Mombasa she couldn’t help her curiosity.

“Do you have family in Uganda?”

Ntobi leaned her head back against her seat, her gaze focused out the window. “ _ Had _ , my older sister met and married her husband in Gulu. They were both killed when the city was raided in the late 80’s.” 

“I’m sorry,” Mal said quickly, though she knew that expression was utterly useless. It was more an apology for prying so early in this relationship, and she hoped it would put Ntobi off her. Then again, she didn’t have to answer her with that level of candidness so perhaps Mal’s concerns were exaggerated. 

Ntobi touched her arm. “Oh, settle down,” She teased. “It's natural to be curious. But, Dr. Miles, don’t think you’ll coax other information from me so easily.” Her lips curved into a smirk. “We women must have our secrets.”

Mal was charmed to say the least. “Of course.” Her smiled mirrored Ntobi’s. “Call me Mal.”

 

+

 

In Venice it was raining, the steady clicking of Mal’s heels on the winding cobblestone streets drowned out by the sound. She stared at the shimmer of her reflection in a puddle, thinking of how she’d once shifted a sand castle into a sprawling palace. The interior design and decor had formed around her like running paint.

_ “You have so much promise,” Ntobi murmured, her barefeet stepping on marble floors. “In time you’ll be the best architect in the field. Why imagine, you could recreate the entire French capital and Embassy.” _

_ Mal scoffed, admiring the red tips of her nails against a golden frame in which she’d created a painting of them sprawled out on linen sheets, her limbs entwined with Ntobi’s. “Why would I want to build something so mundane and standard? I could make an entire new world instead. Remember how much the women from that support group in Eldoret loved  the gardens with the children I built? I made that up from scratch. ” _

_ They had been survivors of female genital mutilation, and many of them had lost their own children in infancy, as well as members of their own group to complications during childbirth.  But in Mal’s dream they shared their stories and pain as adoring children frollicked and pled to sit in their laps.  _

_ Ntobi’s expression became severe for a moment, but shifted into something much more soft before Mal could truly study it. “Dove, in this mundane world, you could alter history.” Was all she said before her arm wrapped around Mal’s waist.  _

_ Her reply was lost in  the feel of those plush lips over her own. Ntobi had laid Mal down on a velvet carpet and made her thighs tremble from the smooth glide of long, clever fingers in her sex. Spilled her breasts out of her evening gown and suckled a bruise on them Mal swore she could feel for days afterwards in the waking world _ . 

A week from now she would marry Dominick, her  _ jumeau âme _ , in Paris. He was her partner and confidant in their study of dreamshare, with the same hunger for exploration and creation Mal had felt from her very first dream. A man of bold and eccentric tastes. He was a lover she wanted nothing more than to grow old with. But not her first. 

 

+

 

“You’ll become used to the heat in a few days,” Ntobi said as she removed her purple shawl, gently kicking off her sandals. Underneath the shawl she had on a flowing white dress, its midsection criss-crossing to reveal parts of her bare waist. The dress fell just above her knees, allowing the long span of her legs to show.  “It will be much cooler once we leave Mombasa and are in Nairobi.”

_ Pale lace curtains billowed throughout the corridor Mal had constructed, lit warmly by the afternoon sun. The hall had only one direction they could take, forward. She could smell the salt of the sea mixed with flower petals littering the floor. The stone was warm on her bare feet, but she shivered when Ntobi’s fingers grazed her wrist. _

_ “Lovely.” Her dark eyes fell on Mal, who grinned mischievously as she went on. “Though lacking in subtlety, as far as intentions are concerned.”  _

_ Mal’s laugh rang throughout the hall. “Is that a detriment?” _

_ “No. I enjoy a woman who is bold in her pursuits....”  _

There was sweat rolling down the back of Mal’s neck and shoulders, even though she was clad only in a sleeveless white top and a white pencil skirt. She admired the ornate decor of the apartment they’d be going under in today, a clawfoot tub placed beside a window, the brilliantly patterned rugs and beaded drapes. It was a pleasant departure from the dilapidated refugee orphanage from which they’d came. Today was her tenth time dreaming in Ntobi’s company alone. Through a very reliable, certain English source she’d learned Ntobi was a former South African National Defence Force member turned community organizer and, according to Eames, a high-level freelance hacker. 

“I had to readjust myself after I took a trip to Barcelona.” Ntobi smiled as Mal carefully situated herself on a sofa. “But I’ve lived in Kenya for so long that, in a way, my tolerance never fully left me.”

Her hands were slender, graceful as they inserted the cannula in Mal’s wrist. Ntobi brushed hair away from her ear, leaning into whisper. “Build me something striking.” Vague instruction, Mal had quickly learned, was a frequent test Ntobi employed. Each time however, she managed to deliver. 

_ At the end of the hall was a luxurious bed canopied with sheer drapes, its sheets rumpled as though an intimate tryst had already taken place. And beyond that laid a beach with the wreckings of a wooden ship being caressed by the waves touching its shores.  _

_ Her yellow sundress was pushed down her shoulders as Ntobi kissed her neck, cupping her breasts tenderly. She dipped her head down to mouth along Mal’s cleavage, delighting in her shudder. Her nipple was taken in full lips, suckled and nipped lightly. Moaning, Mal’s painted nails ran down Ntobi’s backless dress, following the curve of her spine.  _

_ Already she was wet. Well before Ntobi’s fingertips grazed through the dusting of hair on her sex, parting her folds with two fingers and sliding them up, down, in slow circles. She dragged down the straps of Ntobi’s dress to bare her breasts as well, her tongue playing over a nipple in swirls. Ntobi sighed, her thumb pressing down on Mal’s clit while her finger rested underneath it. She ground her thumb up and down with just a hint of pressure, enough to make Mal hitch her breath, her stomach clenching.  _

_ Soon their dresses laid abandoned on the floor. Ntobi dreamt up a silver platter with peeled fruit and an olive branch on it. The branch was laid in the valley of Mal’s breasts, a slice of orange taken in Ntobi’s hand and squeezed until droplets peppered her pink nipples down to her navel. With a languid pace, Ntobi lapped the juice up with her tongue, suckling another deep kiss to the tip of Mal’s nipple, then the other, before kissing down to her navel, biting there to Mal’s amusement.  _

_ She took the orange when it was placed at her lips, biting on its tip to feeling the wetness burst over her mouth. “Its delicious,” Mal told Ntobi as she finished the slice. “But I want a fruit of another sort.” _

_ Ntobi licked at the juice spotting her chin. “We are of a like mind then.” She turned, her knees on either side of Mal’s head, that beautifully dark sex hovering over her face. Mal touched at its smooth skin with her lips, simply reveling in its soft texture while her hands palmed Ntobi’s full ass.  _

_ Her breath grew heavier when Ntobi mouthed along the inside of her thighs, stroking the backs of her fingers over Mal’s sex. She spread its valley, pulling the swollen folds between her lips. Her kinky white hair brushed along Mal’s thighs. She loved its softness and  moaned as she rocked her lips. Ntobi suckled  her hard, drawing back to stretch her folds before letting them go, rolling them between forefinger and thumb while she licked lazily at Mal’s clit. _

_ She parted Ntobi’s folds with her tongue. They were tucked inside her valley like some hidden present, as was her clit, which Mal tended to in slow, long sucks until she felt thighs shaking beside her head. Mal kissed at her clenching hole, her mouth watering wet as her sex at the sight of that pink that laid within. In broad strokes she licked from top to bottom before nuzzling her face further in Ntobi’s cheeks just as those fingers Mal was becoming so fond of glided smoothly into her.  _

_ By the time their positions had changed and Mal was panting as her cunt ground against Ntobi’s sex Nina Simone had begun to croon around them, “I want a little sugar in my bowl. I want a little sweetness down in my soul…” _

_ Her head fell back as she groaned in frustration. “Merde.” _

_ She could hear Ntobi’s breathless laugh over the music, even as it swelled to a crescendo. _

“The climax isn’t everything,” Ntobi teased as she removed the cannula from Mal’s wrist. But she reached inside Mal’s skirt, squeezed her cunt while letting one finger slide down the seam of her slick panties and Mal was coming with a gasp before she could properly reply. 

 

+

 

“I’ve learned the hard way that the key is caution and moderation,” Ntobi told her this a year later, while Mal’s fingers cascaded down the slope of her neck and dew slick grass shifted into sand beneath their naked bodies. “Use too much somnacin too often and you’ll lose the ability to dream faster than you can ever imagine.”

Her dyed white hair almost glowed in the moonlight, like traces of comets and star patterns where her braids fell over the deep ebony color of her skin. Here was a picture of the night Mal was certain she’d never forget, even if she ceased to dream altogether  _ (because the thrill, the wonder of creation being molded by her mind like the most pliable of clay was too great for her to slow her pace) _ . 

Ntobi’s image was painted on the back of her eyelids, her taste like an aged drink on Mal’s tongue. Something to be cherished and handled with the most delicate of touches. 

 

+

 

Mal had traced Ntobi’s current whereabouts to a small, classical Venetian apartment  _ (she would be sending Eames her best homemade goody basket for him to present to his step-mother as a gift for this) _ . In the dreamshare community Ntobi was known as a talented extractor and rumor had it she was lying low after performing an extraction on a corrupt politician in Uganda. 

_ “Do you know what your problem is?” She’d asked Mal the last time they’d spoken, over surveillance photos of a South Sudanese rebel leader and a file on his inner circle. “You’re too content to build dollhouses and the imaginary shit, when you could be using your skills to make a lasting change in the real world.” _

_ And to think just hours ago they’d been celebrating Mwenye Uhuru’s progress. He’d begun speaking at various times during each day of the week.  _

_ Mal had scoffed, crossing her arms. “How can you of all people not see the slippery slope that kind action would lead to? There are some things this technology shouldn’t be used for and altering the fate of political dealings is one of them. Weren’t you the one who told me to use caution?” _

_ She had never seen Ntobi look more disappointed. “I don’t know what I expected from you, but it was far better than this. I should have known your vision as a dreamer would be narrow.” _

_ “What is that supposed to mean?” _

_ “It means you’ve always sat in a position of comfort and security in your life,” Ntobi spat. “You’ve never known what real fear looks like, the reality of war when you aren’t the invading party.” _

_ Mal’s nails dug into her arms. “Is that why you sought me out in the first place? To try and turn me into some weaponized dreamer, instead of testing its therapeutic potential on survivors of trauma? Instead of helping people like Mwenye Uhuru?” _

_ “You could help countless more from becoming like Mwenye! It's inevitable Mal,” Ntobi began moving about the room of their hotel, packing her clothes into a suitcase. “This isn’t confined to the research community anymore. My sources tell me the military in the United States and part of Western Europe have bought the patents to the PASIV from Japan. What exactly do you think they plan to do with it?” _

_ And Mal had no answer for her beyond. “Tell your General Adebowale I’m not interested in this cause.” _

_ She had stormed out from their hotel room to the bar and, when she returned there wasn’t any trace of Ntobi left. _

There was a beretta strapped to Mal’s right thigh, in case of emergency. This was not the first time she’d attempted to reconnect with Ntobi and over the years her motivations for doing so had changed. From simply wanting to see her, to wanting to persuade her to join her on Project Somnacin, to now just wanting them to have a proper goodbye.  

She found the door to Ntobi’s room unlocked and discreetly drew out her gun, doing a sweep of the small space. There was no one and nothing to indicate anyone had even recently been living in the space save for a small wrapped box on a coffee table.

_ To Mallory,  _ a card beside it read. 

Mal opened the present with a likely suspicion of what laid inside. Sure enough it contained a bottle of perfume-  _ Hermès 24 Faubourg,  _  to be exact. But she was not prepared for the lightness of its scent, floral and sunny with a trace of orange blossom, vanilla and ambergis. A farewell made without malice, a homage to intimate memories in lieu of a new beginning.

She put the bottle in her purse, smiling. 

 

+

 

“Heavens Mallory,” Her mother said as she zipped up the back of Mal’s wedding gown. “Where did you get that perfume? It's so much better than the  _ Chanel _ .” This was the happiest she’d been throughout her and Dom’s entire engagement. 

Mal kissed her cheek. “From a good friend who wishes me well.”


End file.
